confrontation
by sharpe26
Summary: the final mission of the sdf4 turns interesting when they run into the battlestar Galactica


Encounter

An RT/BSG crossover story.

Preface; the SDF 4 mission, codenamed Voyager, runs into the battlestar Galactica and it's ragtag fleet. The usual characters make their return, along with a few surprises. Read and review plz.

1: launch day

_Earth Station Hunter, later half of the 2040s_

"Good morning everyone and welcome to the launch day ceremony for the SDF 4." UENN reporter Sandra Mc Dowell said into her headmike.

She stood behind the gargantuan battlecruisers number one docking port and told her audience she was awaiting the arrival of the Hunters, the two most famous admirals of the RDF.

Had she known that one of those Hunters was standing several levels up from her, she would have rushed him. Admiral Rick Hunter was looking over the SDF4, his final command. After this mission, he and Lisa would retire. He had a brief flashback to the time he had first met Lisa. He had called her an old Sourpuss then.

Claudia Grant, fiancée of "Big brother" Roy Fokker had later told him everybody on the bridge had snickered unbelievably. Oh well, at least he had made a lasting impression on her.

He chuckled at that thought.

" Time to go, sir." It was Tom Malone, his ADC. "Your wife's waiting for you one floor down." Hunter nodded. "allright, let's get going."

Even though she was in her early sixties, Admiral Lisa Hayes-Hunter, was still a sight for sore eyes. She met her husband as he came from the elevator. She smiled "Fancy meeting a guy like you on a place like this" Her husband smiled "It's rumored I'm not easy to avoid, especially by the opposite sex." He embraced her. "Shall we get going?"

Sandra Mc Dowell was gleefull when she saw the couple approach. "Here they are now ladies and gentlemen. The Hunters! we'll see if we can get some parting words from them." She went over to join the flock of milling reporters.

Two Marines in standard security garb did their best to shield the two admirals from the press, but they were finding it a taxing job. Luckily it wasn't all that far to the docking port.

They made it inside without that much difficulty.

An Honor guard awaited them, along with Colonel Scott Bernard, the fighter commander. After returning their salute, he fell in behind them.

"How's Roy doing, Scott?" the colonel stayed quiet for a moment.

" Pretty good sir. If he inherited everything you know, he'd be taking over my slot any day now." Both Rick and Lisa laughed at that comment. "I've arranged a fly past once we're under way." Scott added in. "I thought you wanted to have a look at the Gammas anyway, if you'll excuse me. I have to check the status of the fighter launch."

Bernard left the Hunters as they took an elevator up to the bridge level.

In comparison to the Sdf1, 2 or even 3, the sdf4 bridge was far more roomy. The ships commander had his own seat above the rest of the stations. There was a threat board, updated through the scanners, and there offense and defense stations alongside the helm controls.

The ships commander, captain Kristen Thomas was waiting for them. She saluted them.

"Ready to depart on either of your orders sir." Lisa nodded. As senior admiral, she held overall mission command. "Take us out, captain."

Thomas gave the order for the SDF 4 to depart.

With the battlecruiser underway, both Rick and Lisa took their respective seats.

The first fighters passed beside the bridge not much later. Rick recognized them immediately. Alphas, with the jolly rogers on their fins. The Skulls! One of them banked away from the main formation and headed straight for the bridge. On the right time, he mechamorphed into batlloid, winked with his right hand, mechamorphed back and rejoined his squadron.

Only one pilot would do such a thing.

The two admirals briefly exchanged knowingly glances. Time to talk to the kid again.

With main engines flaring, the sdf4 continued on a course that would clear if of Earth's gravity pull.

Fold preparations for their first fold began immediately.

"We're ready to fold, sir." Thomas reported when they cleared the gravity pull. Lisa gave the order. "Commence fold at your pleasure, captain."

Thomas gave just a slight nod towards astrogation. And with the usual lightshow, the SDF 4 vanished from Earth space.

2 learning to walk

_system vxt010104_

Thanks to the new fold system, the reappearance of the SDF4 was near instantaneous. Both Rick and Lisa were old enough to remember a couple of different times though.

"We've defolded sir. Ready to launch recon mission on your order." Scott reported through Rick's headset.

"Launch when ready." Rick ordered.

The flight board showed four Alphas had launched. Their flightleader was heard on an overhead speaker "Alpha scout lead to Voyager command. We're proceeding on preplanned course. Wish us luck. Out."

The four fighters spedd off.

Several hours later, the first scouting mission was deep in the system. The flight had passed several very barren planets that weren't able to sustain life. When they had passed the fifth planet, scout two had picked up a signal.

Though it was very weak, scout two was able to establish a broadcast source. Since it was part of the mission objective, scout leader changed course.

A trajectory analysis showed them to be heading for a small, barren, but habitable moon. It was then that scout four picked up some new contacts, closing fast.

Scout leader was the first to die, followed by scout three. By then, two and four were separated. Scout three died in a hail of fire while attempting to chance to battloid. Scout four however had more luck. He managed to evade the enemy fire and managed a successful conversion. Even though the enemy was fast, the battloid was faster. Six of the enemy fell to the buzzsaw of the autocannon. But, there were just too many. The battloid took six hits and began to spiral down to the small moon.

At the last minute, before entering the atmosphere, Scout four managed to go back to fighter mode. After an eventfull reentry, scout four finally achieved touchdown.

Roy Hunter was relieved to have made it down in one piece. Then he got mad. It was his first plane. It was just unbelievable. The he had a flashback of what had happened to his father on _his_ first combat mission. It made him laugh. "Maybe I'll make admiral someday too." Then he dedicated himself to assembling his survival gear.

3 stranded and rescued 1

The sound was the one he was expecting. He never expected three though.

The three Cylon raiders passed low over his dwelling and landed a slight distance from it.

The nine centurions disembarked from their ships, formed a line of advance and came towards him, weapons at the ready. He pulled his own weapon and aimed for their commander, a gold plated centurion.

And strangely enough, this one was fast, really fast. As his shot brought down one of the regular centurions standing next to the commander, a shot from the laser rifle hit him in the shoulder, bringing him down to the ground.

When he awoke, he was bound, and looking at the command centurion again.

"And so it ends for you, human." The centurion hefted his sword and was about to strike, when the sound of a lasercannon echoed across the plain. One of the regular centurions disappeared in a pillar of flame. The others looked up to see something pass overhead their heads, fast.

There was a sound none of the centurions had ever heard before. But just before that, two more went up in smoke and flames. The commander directed two centurions to stay with him, then sent the remainder back to their ships with instructions to chase down whatever it was from the air.

One raider got in the air for the chase as the mysterious meddler drew away the centurions on the ground. It didn't take the raider long to catch up. But to the surprise of the centurions on the ground and those in the air, the meddler turned back and headed for the spot where the Cylons had left their victim.

Though the raider was fast, its opponent was faster.

From the cockpit and their scanners they could see how he raced back and picked up their earlier target and raced off again. The first raider went off in pursuit as the other Cylons climbed aboard the second raider to follow.

The command centurion was surprised to see that their opponent easily evaded their fire. He contacted his wingman and gave new instructions.

They worked almost immediately.

At first there was a series of near misses, but then a series of shots made such an impression that both targets were thrown from the object. The Cylon commander ordered his pilot to switch on the repulsors and go into a hover in front of their victors.

He could see it clearly, they were both human. The standing order was still in effect. Automatically he started to give the order to his gunner to fire. To his own astonishment, one of the humans suddenly smiled.

Then there was an explosion to his left side.

The command centurion functioned long enough to hear the first missile impact on his ship. When the second one hit as well. His entire ship and crew were completely disintegrated.

Stranded and rescued 2

Roy smiled when the two disc ships were destroyed and two Alphas flew through the expanding debris clouds. Then he took a look at the man he had rescued.

The man was unconscious, but it was clear he belonged to some sort of service. He wore a tattered, but recognizable uniform, with matching brown jacket. The jacket looked as worn as the uniform did. On the collar, there were two gold pins.

In the distance, a SAR shuttle landed.

It was Doctor Angela Eastwood, someone he had been getting close recently, that reached him first.

"You okay, Roy?" Hunter nodded. "Yeah, I'm allright, but this guy ain't . At the very least he's suffering from dehydration." Eastwood briefly examined Hunter's find. "Not much I can do for him down here. I'll have to get him back up to the ship." With that, two corpsmen with a stretcher came up and carried him off. Doctor Eastwood personally escorted Roy to the shuttle.

After returning to the ship, and being cleared to fly again, Lieutenant Roy Hunter visited his parents for dinner.

"It was unbelievable. They were coming from all sides. One and three had already been shot down. Me and Zeyla were trying to fight back. Zeyla got hit in a thruster and lost control." Much to the surprise of Rick and Lisa there was a pause. "Dad, they shot her ejection pod." That caused a few uneasy glances by both Rick and Lisa. The destruction by the Zentraedi had been so complete that in most cases ejecting was pointless the same could more or less be said for the Invid. Dana's debriefing had told them only the Robotech masters had the practice of capture, but this was only after attacks by Southern Cross forces had injured or killed most of their capable pilots.

"Well then, we're dealing with an unknown enemy, again. One we still know nothing about." Lisa remarked as her son finished his story. Roy was pensive for a moment. "Maybe not. I do know that these guys we're dealing with are robots. So why would nine robots go down to a moon to execute a guy?" Roy asked to noone in particular.

The admirals had to admit defeat there. Rick went over to his desk. "Just before you came in, I had a med report delivered to me. Seems Dr Eastwood has a case of dehydration and malnutrition on her hands. However, she expects him to be up and running within a few weeks."

Lisa answered what they were all thinking. "So we wait."

4 the waiting game

In this way, a couple of weeks passed.

While the two admirals waited for reports and took decisions, Roy spent some quality time with Angela Eastwood and her patient. On day twelve, he began to talk.

"Nice setup you got here, doc, how about letting me run a little game in here?" Roy was surprised. They rescued the guy nearly two weeks ago and he wants to run a game in sickbay? This could get interesting.

"And what game would that be?" Eastwood asked, not having seen Roy come in

" Why, pyramid afcourse." The doc was surprised Roy could see as he stepped in. "I'm afraid I don't know any game called Pyramid. But you can ask the lieutenant here about that."

Roy stepped up. "There's something familiar about you." He grimaced. "Yeah, I'm the motorcycle rider that saved you from those robots." At that he got an icy glare. "Those robots....."

Eastwood approached again. "Look, you'd better tell you skipper to get out of the area. Those robots are trouble, serious trouble." Roy was astounded. This guy was serious as hell.

" Why?" the patient told him. "Those robots, are called Cylons. They're a race of machines, bend on destroying all human life. They nearly destroyed our civilization. But they never counted on Adama. He assembled all he could and headed out for the stars. He wanted to find a planet called Earth." At that part of the story, Hunter and Eastwood exchanged meaningfull glances. Their patient caught on fast.

"hey wait a minute, those glances, you two wouldn't happen to know where Earth is, would you now?" Roy sighed. "let's just say that's where this ship departed."

"Oh boy, Apollo's never going to believe this." The patient muttered. "Who's Apollo?" Roy then asked. "Captain Apollo, the viper commander from the battlestar Galactica, I used to be his wingman, lieutenant Starbuck."

Roy nodded. "Well then lieutenant Starbuck, welcome aboard the SDF4. I'm lieutenant Roy Hunter." Although Starbuck had a little difficulty grasping what had happened, a word from Roy to his folks was enough to allow him to be the one to debrief after lieutenant Starbuck left the hospital.

Three weeks later, Rick Hunter got reports on his desk about a new gambling game showing up in town, the main character involved, lieutenant Starbuck. Rick thought for a moment, until he realized the solution had been staring him right in the face. He sent for Scott and Roy.

The colonel and the lieutenant arrived at the same time.

"Sir, do you have any idea why the admiral wants to see us?" Scott was quiet. "I think I know, Roy. And it means we'll have our hands full." They entered the room to find the admiral sitting at his desk.

Hunter was as cordial as ever. "Ahh yes, just the two gentlemen I wanted to see."

It took no trouble at all. In a previous report Scott had mentioned the fact that the SDF4 pilots were good, but that they needed to gain more experience against the Cylons. Rick then asked, with the report in hindsight, how Scott would react to setting up an aggressor course.

Roy then realized what his dad was up to. He had no choice but to go along now as well.

Therefore, It was no surprise that the next game Starbuck held, was visited by a score of MPs that delivered their cargo to hangar deck Alpha.

" Okay, you're all welcome to the next game." Then he saw Roy and Scott.

"Hey Roy, what gives?" Roy ignored the remark. "We got a problem Starbuck."

"If it's my gambling, I can hide it a bit better you know." Scott sneered at that, but Roy was a bit more diplomatic "I'm afraid it's a bit more serious then that."

"You see, Admiral Hayes feels we could go up against the Cylons anytime soon. She wants our troops to have a bit more experience before the stuff really hits the thrusters." Roy took particular care to avoid mentioning his father was admiral Hunter, while his mother was Admiral Hayes-Hunter

"And that's where you come in." Scott suddenly said. "I'm colonel Scott Bernard. I'll be your flight instructor for a while, together with lieutenant Hunter over here." Smiling he added. "Training commences now."

Starbuck found himself without a rebuke and was directed to a small pile of equipment in front of a peculiar looking fighter plane. There were two similar piles besides his." Just follow our lead, we'll check out how you did once we're finished."

Slowly and methodically, the two REF officers put on their gear. Starbuck followed where he could, wondering why the hell he needed so much equipment to fly.

When Scott and Roy checked him over, they found most of the Robotech gear on Starbucks body to be in the proper place and properly locked. The things that weren't, the two Robotech pilots adjusted themselves.

The fighter that had been readied, was a doubleseater Starbuck saw as they walked up to it. "Front seat's yours Starbuck." Roy remarked as he climbed into the rear cockpit. He followed roy's lead and settled into the seat. The groundcrew strapped him in.

"Ready?" Roy asked him through the intercom. "let's get on with it." Starbuck replied.

They were in space not much later, to find Scott waiting for them. He raised them on the radio. "Okay this is how it's going to go. I'm going to go standard fighter on you guys. Starbuck, I want you to fly as much as a Cylon as possible. Roy can take over anytime you lose control, or something else happens that needs the hand of a trained Alpha pilot."

Starbuck nodded. "Fight's on." He then heard in his helmet.

He put his hands on the throttle and stick and banked the fighter as tight as he dared to do. The kick from switching to full afterburner was pretty tense, especially when Starbuck briefly noticed he was already closing in on Scott.

"Okay Starbuck, the weapons have been set to low energy, fire when ready." His hand found the trigger easily. Out of instinct, he let the fighter climb and dove on the other Alpha fighter from above. As he was about to fire, there was a series of beeps in Starbuck's helmet.

"What's going on Roy?" The backseat remained quiet for a moment.

"Oh boy, Starbuck, according to SDF4 flight control, we've got about 200 unknown craft approaching, at high speed." It sounded familiar enough. "Cylons?"

" Take a look at the scanner." Roy told him where it was as Scott pulled into formation alongside them. "That's a Cylon formation allright." Now Scott called Starbuck "Anything else we should know?"

Starbuck thought for a moment. "Yeah, the pinwheel attack, and reverse thrust. The pinwheel is a series of sweeps upon a trapped opponent, the other is just an escape used by the aces to get out of someone's sights." As Starbuck looked around, he noticed that there were more fighters around already.

Aboard the SDF4, everyone had gone to battlestations. The two admirals were on the bridge, when they received another report. "Scanners picking up three large objects closing in fast."

" Form scan." Lisa replied. The answer came back not much later. " Three multideck vehicles, equipped with several kinds of lasers and missile launchers."

Starbuck was already reacting. "Baseships!, better watch out for those guys, they're liable to take you out , admiral." No reply came from the SDF4.

Instead, Scott took charge. "Alpha leader to all fighters, standby to engage, go to battloid if you're trapped." When Roy didn't ask any questions, Starbuck didn't either.

Aboard the lead raider, the centurion was surprised by the fact that the new humans they had found also had fighters. But, following the imperative, he ordered the attack to commence.

Starbuck was a bit worried. He was going into battle again, this time even in the front seat.

"Watch this." Roy suddenly said. And without warning, six missiles streamed from their fighter.

They joined in a stream of converging trails that centered on the Cylon formation. Suddenly, there was a wall of explosions.

The Cylons broke up and went after the closest human fighters, one of which was the one being piloted by Roy and Starbuck. And sure enough, the Cylons tried the pinwheel attack

Thanks to Starbuck's warning, Roy was ready for it.

Without realizing what really happened, Starbuck suddenly found himself looking at a screen from inside of somekind of pod.

" What just happened?" The reply was short. "Pinwheel."

In space, explosions blossomed as missiles from one side found the other, as lasers found their mark, others would shriek of destruction and debris. Through that at least one battloid stood tall, dealing out death and destruction to all whom encroached upon its space.

Out of nowhere, Starbuck was thrown forward. He hit his head on the instrument panel in front of him. "Frack, what was that?" There was no response.

"Roy, what happened?" Again there was no response. Out of instinct, Starbuck grabbed the two control sticks in front of him. Three Raiders where bearing down on him, and here he was, in a fighter he knew nothing about. Great, just great, now if he could only swing the barrel of that gun onto the lead Cylon.

To his own surprise the gun did just that. It leveled at the lead raider and locked on, automatically. Without hesitation, Starbuck pulled the trigger and let the gun follow the entire formation. He was rewarded with three fireballs.

"Now that's more like it." Pretty soon, Starbuck got the hang of it. One after the other the raiders that approached where turned into flaming debris. Other pilots that saw it, later compared the things they saw to how Max Sterling's first mission must have been.

But the pilots eyes weren't the only ones out there. Electronic eyes aboard the lead ship of three Cylon baseships also observed the battle.

The commander of that force, was an IL series by the name of Areus. He was observing the battle through the electronic surveillance equipment aboard his command ship.

The first report delivered to him by the system patrol was anything but encouraging. They had found a small tylium trace at a barren moon. That trace turned out to belong to the wreck of a colonial Viper. Since Areus was uncertain of the situation, he had sortied a squad of fighters. Those fighters had run into scout one.

Half of them had been destroyed he knew. The flight commander had then split his forces and continued down to the planet with two ships while three others reported back to their base. Since then there was no word. Electronic scanning however had detected a very large vessel entering the system. If it was the battlestar Galactica, well Areus had a thing or two to tell them. Especially now, with the new Megastar.

Cylon rule over the universe would be supreme. And Areus place would forever be secured in the Cylon history archives. A centurion stood before him again. "Report Centurian!"

"The ship we monitored is a human ship. Configuration does not match anything in our data banks." Areus monitored the electronic network that kept him in touch with his subordinate ship commanders. They offered no opinion except attack and destroy.

Areus gave the order to proceed forward.

5 a bit of Cain and Hayes

The scanners aboard the SDF4 picked up the incoming baseships. An oral report through a headset said "Enemy capital ships incoming."

The computers and scanners on the sdf4 were a whole lot more advanced then those on the SDF 1. Although they didn't posses any information on the baseships or the Megastar, they were able to distinguish weapon systems.

This intelligence was forwarded up to Lisa.

A quick glance showed the Megastar to be the only real threat.

At first Lisa felt prudent to let the main batteries do their work on the basestars while more information was collected on the Megastar.

However, the Cylons never gave them the chance and opened fire. The SDF 4 responded in kind.

In the meantime, Scott had gotten in touch with Starbuck when he noticed something happening with one of the three baseships. When Scott told him what he saw Starbuck knew they had to get moving.

"Quickly, How do I get this thing back to fighter?" Scott told him how "Just pull down the switch marked F on your left hand panel." Starbuck watched and felt how the Battloid changed back to fighter. When the change was complete, Starbuck raced off, with Scott hot on his tail.

When the two fighters were picked up by the SDF4, Starbuck briefly explained what the Cylons were doing And, what He was going to do about it. Rick wished him good luck and left Lisa to handle the big battle while he concentrated on the fighter battle.

Scott and Starbuck closed with the three raiders, Starbuck flew as evasively as he dared, while Scott followed closely behind. As some raiders tried to intercept, Scott broke off and made sure Starbuck was covered.

He was alone again and frantically working the scanners. When he found what he was looking for, the missile launchers, Starbuck put the Alpha into a screaming dive. He was rewarded with the missile lock tone. He hit the fire button and watched a series of missiles leave the fighter. When a couple of the smaller laserbatteries opened up, Starbuck disengaged and hurried out of the area.

By now the SDF4 was closing with the two basestars and the Megastar. Lasers, pulsars and reflex cannon exchanged their energy without it either affecting the contestants. Pretty soon, Lisa decided she ´d had enough.

Prepare port and starboard missiles! We´re going right down the middle. Lisa stood up and approached the forward viewscreens. " Flank speed!"

Through her feet she felt the familiar rumble as the reflex engines kicked in.

Starbuck had rejoined Scott. Together, the two pilots destroyed the raiders that had tried to intercept Starbuck.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" It was then that Starbuck noticed the shadow of the SDF4 looming over his cockpit. This time he followed Scott's lead. When they reached a point where Scott felt safe, he brought his fighter around and watched the fire works.

The SDF4 was at full speed when the reflex missile battery ports were opened. On the bridge, the computer was running the countdown while the weapons officer held his trigger at the ready. Lisa stood in steady anticipation, waiting for the moment.

To Areus it seemed as if the humans were crazy. They came at him, with all guns blazing, while he rushed at them. They were now almost in missile range.

Aboard the SDF 4, just one thing was said "Fire."

The SDF4 fired its missiles, much to the surprise of Areus who was about to order the same.

The difference between Reflex missiles and Cylon explosives was massive. The first Basestar to be hit disappeared in a massive fireworks display. The second one followed the way of the first basestar. The Megastar however turned out to be something different. Two missiles had been fired at her. Both hit her at the mid junction. And yet, she never went up like her sisters.

The Cylons had enough sensors remaining to know what was going on, and too much damage to do anything about it. As two more missiles hit the Megastar, she too went like a large fireworks display.

Rick was already ordering the fighters recalled. They still had a lot of work to do.

Starbuck hadn't thought about the damage for a while until it was his turn to land. By then, something short circuited and a brief shower of sparks flashed in the cockpit. "Great, just great." By then two Alphas had appeared, one to each side. Scott's voice came over the radio "Starbuck you seen to have a slight problem. Just cut your engines and let my boys do the rest."

Starbuck did as ordered. And to his surprise the other two Alphas shifted into somekind of half plane mode and carried him into the bay.

The waiting game he was used to. There had been those times aboard the Galactica, waiting for friends, loved ones or even friends of friends. Finally Angela Eastwood came out of the room. She looked at Rick and Lisa. "He'll make it. Luckily his Cyclone armour held out, so there's no brain damage due to lack of oxygen ." The two admirals both breathed sighs of relief. They went in to see their son.

Starbuck was in his quarters when an ensign delivered a message that he was expected in the admirals quarters at his earliest opportunity.

He decided to change into the standard crew uniform he saw around him nearly everywhere he went.

Interestingly enough, colonel Bernard showed up as well. "Interesting to see you here, sir."

Scott nodded. "It seems the admiral wants to discuss something with us." He motioned for Starbuck to enter the room.

Rick and Lisa had a plotting board in their main room, and on it, was a course. A course heading for Earth, Scott saw immediately. Starbuck was quiet for a moment as he studied the entire line. "That where they're heading lieutenant."

" Earth?"

" Earth!" Lisa reaffirmed Ricks statement.

Then Starbuck told them his story. At first Rick and Lisa were emotionless. They had gone through nearly the same events as Starbuck and his people had. Then they told him about the Zentraedi, and the invid, and the three wars Earth had to fight.

Starbuck was surprised at first. Instead of gradually developing technology, Earth had technology had technology thrust upon it. He grimaced at the thought of the Robotech Masters. Talk about stubborn. The Invid seemed to have been a worse bunch, but the admirals both felt that they had seen the last of them.

Then he was told of the plan.

And with the customary show of light, the SDF4 conducted another spacefold and disappeared.

5 surrounded

_somewhere on the vector to Earth_

Aboard the battlestar Galactica, two viper pilots went up to their ships to prepare for their next scouting mission. They were saddened, just two sectars ago, these two pilots had lost one of their closest friends and comrades, Starbuck, in a short but intense battle with the Cylons. And now they were on the lookout for a planet

Sheba and Bojay hardly flew together on missions any more. So when this one came up, they both grabbed their chance.

"Just like old times, Sheba." Bojay remarked after the two scout vipers had launched. Sheba snickered "Yes, only that this time, I'm willing to bet that Apollo is monitoring us like a bird of prey." Now Bojay chuckled. "Hey yeah, you reading us, commander?" He added a few more good hearted ribs until Sheba demanded his attention again.

"What's up?" Sheba told him. "We're entering the system. Keep an eye out for trouble." The two vipers entered the newest in the rows of unknown star systems. Both pilots had set their scanners to full power and were looking around.

"Not really much interesting around here, is there?" Sheba was quiet for a moment. "Bojay are you reading what I'm reading?" Sheba was astounded. Not again, not now! Not after all this time!

"Do they see you Sheba?" Bojay was sure the Cylons didn't see him since he was somewhat to the rear of Sheba. But, his wingleader found herself in a different kind of situation. The odds were very high that the Cylons could scan her viper very well.

And they did. An IL entered the throne room. At the same time the pedestal mounted chair swiveled round. The deep voice of Imperious Leader reverberated through the room "Speak."

"It would seem the colonials have found us, sir." The IL remained quiet for a moment as his leaders attention was focused on something on the far edge of the room. "So Baltar, it seems I have success where you have failed me. Soon you will be joined by your brethren. Then order will be complete." Baltar's severed head looked on from across the room, staring blankly. "Launch one squadron of the new super raiders. Tell the commander they are to hound the colonials until they reach their fleet. Then they are to return here. Then we will begin the final battle with the lifeform known as man."

The IL answered with the traditional "By your command." and left the room.

A squadron of the Baltar designed super raiders was then launched from the lead of five Megastars. Imperious leader then watched how they proceeded to form up and began to chase the two colonial vipers. If a Cylon had lips, any human would be surprised to see that the he smiled. He then turned to another subordinate. "Order all forces to converge on our location. We will draw a net around the colonial fleet and destroy them!" Had he been able to, Imperious leader would have laughed like a human madman.

Sheba and Bojay didn't waste any time in leaving the area of the Cylon fleet. At full turbo, they streaked off in the direction of their own fleet.

Sheba willed every ounce of power out of her ship. Glancing down on her scanner, she noticed that the Cylons had sent out pursuers, who were closing fast.

"Bojay!" Bojay was also looking hat his scanner readout. "We're in serious trouble, these guys are much faster then we are, we'll lead them right back to the fleet."

Bojay knew already. They were in serious trouble. "We gotta keep going Sheba, there's no choice now." And with that, the two colonials led their pursuers straight to their fleet.

After landing, the two pilots were immediately escorted to Adama's quarters. The old man was furious at first, demanding to know why two of his best pilots had led their arch enemy straight to their position. Sheba was apologethic to her father in law at first, but when into greater detail. "We had no choice sir, the fleet need to be warned of a far greater danger. It would seem the Cylons have new ships!" Her wingman confirmed it.

Adama was pensive for a moment. "We're in a bind. The Cylons could probably destroy us at a whim now, but they haven't done so yet. We'll just have to see what the other patrols find." Not much later, colonel Tigh came in. His face looked grim.

" Adama, the other patrols have returned, the situation is bad!" Adama began to turn towards Tigh, but never completed it. He collapsed.

Tigh made the call to the life station. Medics were there within minutes, with doctor Salik hot on their heels. Salik briefly scanned the commander and what he heard and saw was grim. "Get the commander to the life station on the double." In the meantime, Apollo came running up as well. "What happened?" He asked, trying to regain his breath.

"I'm not sure. From the looks of it I would say that your father has suffered a coronary." Apollo let it sink in for a moment and looked at Sheba for hope. She looked back then came to him and embraced him. "Oh Apollo." But before she could say anything else, Tigh was near the both of them.

"Apollo, we're in trouble." Colonel Tigh began "Sheba and Bojay found a Cylon fleet on our path, new ships, ships we've never seen before." Tigh let it sink before continueing "The other patrols found the same thing Apollo, we've wandered into a trap. We have to prepare now." Tigh stressed the preparations especially.

Apollo nodded. "Let's see what we can do, colonel." His mind wasn't in it though, Tigh realized it immediately once they started.

But within six or seven hours, they had a working defence plan. It was then that a call came into Adama's quarters. It was doctor Salik. The face on screen was a bit gloomy. "Colonel, is Major Apollo near you, I'd like to talk to him." Tigh called him over.

"Major Apollo. I'm sorry to report that 25 centons ago, your father, commander Adama died due to massive hart damage." Apollo collapsed into a nearby chair. First one tear fell, but it was soon followed by more.

6: The Situation

All of the pilots were surprised when Tigh turned up to give them their briefing instead of Apollo. Rumours had abounded earlier that Adama was ill and Tigh had taken over.

Those rumours disappeared when Tigh entered the officers club. All the pilots came to attention.

"As you were, and be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, as of this morning, the Cylons have us surrounded again. All squadrons are currently on Yellow alert. We're expecting one of the heaviest attack since Gamoray." Boomer looked at Dietra with a rather intent glance. Jolly gazed at the floor. Sheba held her thoughts to herself and kept her gaze at colonel Tigh, who was now handing out assignements " Blue squadron under Boomer will defend the Galactica and act as primary interceptor force. Red squadron will back them up. Silver Spar gets the agro ships, Yellow gets the industrials. Green squadron takes care of the passenger fleet, together with Gold and Black squadrons."

While colonel Tigh was handing out assignements, Imperious leader was reviewing strike intelligence. There had been some movement with the colonials within the last sectar. A carefull study, showed this to be defensive moves performed at the behest of Adama.

Imperious leader nodded. Yes, victory would be theirs this day. He ordered one of his subordinates to pull up a screen of their own dispositions. It was a good sight. Three Megastars held a blocking position, preventing the Galactica moving forward. Two more were in reserve. Their escorts, four baseships held back a little, but had good positions to intercept any intruder should the situation warrant it.

The situation wasn't that different on the flanks of the colonial fleet. Two more of the new Megastars had been positioned on each flank, each supported by two more baseships. To the rear of the colonial fleet, there was one of the Megastars, also with two baseships in support, and yet one other still on its way.

If push would come to shove, Imperious leader felt that the single megastar could take on the Galactica by itself. He wondered why there still was no report from Areus, the Megastar commander.

After detailing a patrol to check it out, Imperious leader ordered his forces to begin advancing on the colonial fleet while all fighters were readied for launch.

7: preparations

Instead of an early warning patrol, colonel Tigh had deployed electronic monitoring probes. Some of these probes now began sending their ominous warnings back to the Galactica, along with visual imaging.

One of those images was that of a Megastar. Tigh gasped. "There's no way we can defeat such a monstrosity." Apollo's look was intense. "We don't have a choice now, all ships, red alert." The battle illumination shaded the bridge in red.

In pilot country, Boomer, Jolly and Sheba lead the charge for the helmets and the trains to the flight deck. There, they boarded their ships and waited. There wasn't much else they could do.

In the meantime on the bridge, Tigh and Apollo were studying the scanner and probe data, to see if there was something they missed. In the first instant, they noticed how the Cylons were deployed. Apollo noticed the gap at the rear. "That's odd. It looks like they're missing a ship in the rear. "As they watched the scanners, another group of baseships appeared and took up position. "Running the gauntlet." Athena whispered to herself from her station on the bridge.

Apollo heard the remark but ignored it. "Omega, seal all compartiments, and put Joorda and his men on standby alert." Colonel Tigh contemplated the current situation. Were the Cylons playing with them? Or was there something happening here that they weren't seeing.

Rigel delivered news for the next phase of the battle. "New enemy contacts approaching."

Apollo ordered more power to the laser turrets as he knew what was happening. The Cylons had launched their fighters.

The lead Cylon fighter, was a super raider, flown by a command centurion named Xeran. His was the job of commanding the raiders in this mission. He was a veteran of countless battles against the humans and one of the survivours of the Gamoray debacle. He was now continuosly monitoring his surroundings. The human interceptors would be fast, agile and as deadly as the pinwheel attack which was one of the standard centurion tactics.

There was a gagle of stars in the distance, growing brighter every micron. The humans were coming.

Xeran braced himself. Even though he was flying one of the super raiders, he knew that he could expect the unexpected. The humans were known for that. He examined the readouts on the scanner screen. "Colonial Vipers approaching, standby to attack."

He watched as the humans began their confusing flight patterns again.

The moment was there. From all sides he watched them rushing in, firing and retreating. They destroyed regular raiders without too much effort. "All pilots engage." The dogfight now erupted into a full blown battle.

8: WHO will win

At his own request, Apollo went out to lead the squadron again.

It was he who had formed the formation and commanded the intercept that destroyed the first raiders. And it was at his order, that Blue squadron retreated towards the Galactica, to await the further Cylon onslaught.

"Galactica bridge to Blue strike leader. Current number of raiders current raiders exceeds two thousand." It was Athena that told her brother. It was the rest of the pilots that nearly fell out of their cockpit in amazement. They had never faced those odds before. But yet they did, and yet they would, without hesitation all of the vipers attacked the biggest attack the Cylons had ever thrown at them.

It would be a battle both Cylons and humans would remember for a long time to come. It was battle marked by the best mankind had to give, and the worst.

Two vipers that were protecting an agroship, watched helplessly as it was attacked by a single superraider, which destroyed the ship with one single volley. The two viper pilots at first emptied their cannons into it, but to no avail. The raider simply flew on. It was then, that one of the pilots took the ultimate decision. Pushing his ship into full power, he closed with the raider and hit it at the side with his own ships nose. The ensueing explosion did the rest. Both craft were destroyed.

On the Galactica bridge, Omega reported the arrival of the second Cylon wave. He paled when he told his commanders the number of craft " Total for the second wave is a thousand craft."

Colonel Tigh nodded. "Tell the pilots." As the Galactica suffered another direct hit.

"Blue strike leader, second Cylon wave incoming." As he received the report, Apollo nearly took a direct hit from a Superraider. A brief series of evasive turns shook the Cylons off his tail. He glanced in the direction of the Galactica and the fleet. They were still holding up, but barely. Four vipers was what it took to down a superraider, Apollo noticed as one of those fast Cylon ships shattered under the fire of four reserve vipers.

After shooting down a conventional raider, Apollo glanced at his scanner. " Galactica bridge, the Cylons are bringing in their baseships!" He then had to turn his attention at least a squad of raiders that were bearing down on the Alpha bay.

"We're with you Apollo." The voice in his headset belonged to Sheba. " Yeah Strike leader, take us in." the voice of Bojay said as he came up on Apollo's fighter from the right, while Sheba came up on his left.

" Let's get them." With that, the three most famous colonial warriors hit their turbos and went straight for their targets.

Six explosions later, the threat to Alpha bay was narrowly avoided.

Apollo looked at his scanner again. The baseships were almost upon the fleet. And Colonel Tigh knew it too.

" Galactica bridge to all fighters. If you get the chance, try to make a run on their flank missile launchers."

He then headed a call for help from Silver Spar and headed in their direction.

On the Galactica bridge Tigh had noticed how one of the regular baseships had moved up somewhat in front of one of the three Megastars. A brief vector analysis showed all of them to be on an intersect course with the battlestar.

" Prepare all weapons, lock on to that single basestar."

Electro motors whined and portals were opened as the battlestar made ready to deploy her ship to ship turrets.

The daggit fights continued unabated between the fighters.

After managing to destroy his latest opponent, Apollo realized he had to do something. He turned his ship and headed of in the direction of the approaching baseship. Pretty soon he had at least three raiders on his tail.

"Apollo to bridge, I'm going to try to..... "He was interupted by a humongous flash of light.

" NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" the com frequencies were immediately filled with several cries of anguish as more pilots noticed what had happened.

Apollo now became filled with hate "Blue strike leader to all, I'm going to take out her flank missiles and her flightbay if I can." After a pause he added "Good luck."

Out of nowhere, came a familiar voice. "I have this sudden feeling of déjà vu, mind if I come along?"

There was a wash of explosions behind him through which a rather large fighter flew which then fell into formation beside him. " Starbuck?"

9: swordsmen

On the Galactica bridge, Everybody picked themselves from the floor. For a brief moment all the scanners had been blocked out by what could best be described as a spatial anomaly.

But when everything returned to normal, the first report Tigh received, was that of a new ship. Or rather, that's what Omega was told by the scanner techs.

Out in space, pilots from all sides watched a like as nothing more nor nothing less then a gargantuan robot climbed in front of the Galactica. Suddenly, the two booms on its shoulders were lowered. All of a sudden they were aglow with a combination of fire and light. The combination grew brighter and brighter until finally, a wide sheeth of flame rushed forwards.

The flames first illuminated the baseships and Megastars until they started to disappear. Not without their usual thundering detonation, but with no report at all, they just disappeared from existence.

Near the colonial fleet, things weren't that much different. The new arrivals went after the Cylons with a skill the colonials had never seen before. But it showed immediately. Esspecially the superraiders paid a heavy price, as it turned out that every one of the newcomers could easily outfly and outfight them.

This became very clear once a group of four newcomers engaged a squad of twelve superraiders. The fight was brief but intense, and in the end, none of the superraiders returned to their already destroyed baseships. The four newcomers flew on, undamaged and in search of new prey.

Apollo followed Starbuck as best as he could. Those newcomers, who ever they were, were deadly. Where superraiders and raiders alike tried to run, they were shot down by missiles. Where they stood to fight, they were annihilated, either by the colonials themselves or by the newcomers.

He watched how Starbuck shot down six raiders within the blink of an eye. But then he noticed the two of them were trapped in a pinwheel attack. Before he could say anything, something happened to Starbucks plane.

" Starbuck, you're starting to...." Apollo never finished the sentence as he noticed how his best friends plane changed into nothing less then a giant centurion carrying a very big laser cannon. As Apollo made himself ready, he noticed the centurion opened fire.

Another few moments later, the threat was gone.

On another plain of existence, someone watched, felt and more importantly, observed and studied Apollo. Yes, he recollected, he would suffice indeed for the master plan. He swiftly departed his layer and headed for the battle.

Tigh's voice requesting Apollo's presence on the bridge was a godsend to Starbuck.

10: Conference call

"Colonel, good to hear your voice, what happened?" Tigh briefly explained what he thought had happened. He then repeated the request for Apollo to join him on the Galactica bridge.

The Cylon raiders that survived managed to withdraw. Aboard the Galactica, everyone the bridge watched in awe as the giant robot seemed to fall over forwards and began rearranging itsself.

It was Omega that brought the next news. "Sir, we're being hailed, the commander of the SDF 4 is requesting permission to board our vessel." Tigh nodded. "Alpha bay, tell Apollo to meet us there." Omega nodded and relayed the message to one of the com techs.

Tigh, Sheba and Apollo were the only ones present in the bay, together with colonial warrior security. Here they watched two of the Alphas land, together with a shuttle.

All of them were surprised when Starbuck jumped from the cockpit of the first fighter with his usual flair. To his own surprise, he didn't see Adama in the usual crowd as he walked up along with Roy Hunter. He spotted Tigh, still wearing his colonels pips. Why wasn't Adama with them? Then he spotted Apollo.

The guy was as solemn as hell. But yet, embraced him as they met. "Good to see you again, Starbuck. What happened?" Starbuck gave him the short version as the two admirals approached Tigh.

Lisa saluted in the usual military way. Rick was a bit more haphazard, but did his best anyway. "Admiral Lisa Hayes-Hunter. I'm honored to meet with our supposedly long lost brothers." She extended her left hand as Tigh took it with his right.

The alliance was a fact. In other reality, beings clapped applause, while others on the same level, but far from those applauding, grumbled their discontent. They soon realized one of them was missing.

Starbuck was surprised as Roy appeared behind him. "Well now, now that your folks are aboard, Roy, it 'll be interesting to see how the show plays out." An astounded Roy Hunter turned around. "you knew?"

Starbuck chuckled "Not until just now. I suspected something, though." And the two exchanged some more lighthearted banter while they followed the big shots to the Galacticas council chambers. They would probably be in for a long sit.

The contestants, that's what a writer of history would have called those missing from the other dimension. But things were in motion now.

Tigh was glad he had gotten rid of council security. As a matter of fact, he was glad he had gotten rid of the entire council for now. Things had been put on hold till Starbucks claims that the crew of the SDF 4 was from Earth could be verified.

This would take time, time someone else wasn't ready to give them.

With just a brief jump, he checked their thoughts, only to be amazed that they really were from Earth, but according to their rules, the colonials couldn't set foot on Earth. Realising this, he laughed, letting the sound echo through the corners of the universe.

"Then we are agreed." the voice interupted his thoughts, it had been the woman admiral. He watched Tigh nodd. " I'm not to happy about this, but at least our people will have a home again. I will however still have to deal with my governing body. It would suit our purposes as they would see you, the representatives of Earths governement."

Before the two admirals could react, the alert klaxons wailed throughout the battlestar and was Tigh summoned to the bridge. The scanners had picked up something again.

At the same time, Ricks communicator also beeped.

" sir, incoming message, for you and Lisa, Old Blue sends his regards and says he has found something the colonials will find very interesting."

That same moment, Tigh and the others got the update from the bridge.

11: hope

Both Rick and Lisa had joined the crowd that had rushed for the Galactica Alpha bay. All of them were in time to see the shuttle come to a stop. The figure that exited first everyone of the colonials knew, Cain, their greatest military mind had come back.

He raised his trademark swagger stick to a heros applause as the RDF officers looked on, wondering what was going on. Starbuck briefly told Roy about some of Cains antics.

"Wow, he did that and survived, impressive." Roy nodded not fully understanding. "I just wonder where Adama is." He hadn't really though about it but, a page requesting his presence in the commanders quarters reminded him that bigger things were going on.

As he got there, a crewman let him in.

Cain was there, as were Apollo, Tigh, Athena, Sheba and Cassie. Cassie seemed to be consoling the commander of the Pegasus and Apollos sister at the same time. The Galactica strike captain was a little downcast to say the least. They all looked up to see him come in.

"Oh Starbuck" sobbing, Athena ran and embraced him.

" What happened?" He looked at all of them, including Cain. Cain looked at Starbuck, tears welling up in his eyes. "Son, you might wanna sit down for this." Starbuck objected at first, but finally took the seat. "So, what's going on?"

It was Cain that told him. "Son, commander Adama has died." Starbuck slumped down in the chair.

That was the one thing he never really expected to hear, the one thing he thought would never happen. The one thing he betted on would never happen. He felt a tear starting to run.

"I know, I know, just let it go." Starbuck began to retreat., still sobbing. Cassie went after him. The two colonials were too late to see Max Sterling, AKA Old Blue enter the chambers, with wife Miriya and daughter Dana in tow.

Max and Rick had known each other for so long but were still equally pleased to run into each other. "Long time no see Max." Sterling smiled "Same here admiral." Rick noticed his longtime wingman carrying an envelope "sealed orders?" This time, the query came from Lisa.

Max nodded. "yup, my orders are assist you guys in relocating the colonials so, admirals it seems I work for you again."

Max looked at Cain "Commander, from what you've told me, you are currently the highest ranking officer around the colonial fleet..."

Cain shook his head "I'm sorry ambassador Sterling, but I won't do it. I've dedicated my life to fighting the Cylons. Those battles I can win. The battles with the council are _an entirely different matter_." The commander of the Pegasus placed particularly emphasis on his last words.

Both Rick and Lisa wanted to say something, but at a glare from Max they withheld their comments. Again there was a knock at the door. The regal woman in white robes was a site to behold. All of the colonials with the exception of Cain bowed for her.

"Siress Tinia, what brings us the honour of your presence?" Tinia looked scoldingly at Cain "So it seems the wolf returns to the fold." Athena and Tigh looked at each other not understanding. She then looked at Apollo and Athena "Doctor Salik told me. I came here to express my grief to the both of you, major, captain. He was a wise man and will be sorely missed." For the assembled crew it seemed as if she was posing herself for something bigger to come.

"We will hold a short period of national mourning. After that, there will be some changes. Colonel Tigh, front and center please." As tigh stepped up to the council member she took out a box from her robes.

"Congratulations on your new command, commander Tigh." She stepped back as the others approached to congratulate him. "Major Apollo, please join me for a moment." Apollo and Tinia briefly left the room as Cain explained to the RDF officials what was going on.

As an extra he added "I'd give a sectans pay to find out what those twelve are up to."

From the corner of the room and unvisible to all, Iblis smiled. The pawns were in position. From the beyond, a voice spoke to him "It seems you play this game well. Now, When will we strike?"

Iblis looked angered for a moment "In time, things are not yet complete."

12: end of the wagon train

Adamas funeral was simple yet it seemed as if everyone wanted to eulogize one of the most famous commanders the colonials ever had. At first Roy didn't want to go, but when it turned out everyone was going, he went together with Starbuck and Cassi.

Starbuck still seemed a little down but in a brief moment alone, Cassi told the young lieutenant that she was keeping close tabs on the newly promoted captain. Roy thanked her "You know, lifesaver things, I want him to be around to save my life. Besides, the way he plays cards...." The colonial doctor had to laugh at that comment. " That's Starbuck for you. He never asked me to play though."

With that, the admiral's son and the lead doctor struck up one hell of a long conversation.

In the meantime the two admirals and the ambassador were in a meeting of their own. And neither Rick nor Lisa liked their orders. "They come all this way, and command wants to ship them to Tirol!!!!, come on Max!!" Rick slammed his fist on his desk. Lisa was quiet for a moment.

"Look, I know it isn't up to their interests, but its orders, Rick." Max remained calm as Lisa suddenly got up and walked to one of com panels. "Bridge this is Admiral Hayes. How far are we from any of the com satellites?"

The reply was short. "We're currently five lightyears from satellite router twentythree mam."

Her husband and the ambassador looked at her stoically. "If you don't mind me asking, but what the hell are you up to?" Lisa told them " I plan to make a broadcast directly to the entire Earth, to show them who these people are, what happened to them, why they're here. I have a feeling we'll need them in the times to come."

Rick was stoical at first "You told me you and your father watched the Max and Miriyas wedding on Alaska base. And that it had no effect on him." Lisa silenced him by raising her hand "Do you remember Gloval's speech?"

Boy did he ever, at first it had seemed Rick, then himself the Skull squadron commander, that Gloval voiced strong objections that the pair shouldn't be married only to turn it to a rabblerousing speech in which he basically told everyone that the war with the Zentraedi would end and that each and everyone would have to work together, just because things had changed, or face the consequences.

The first UEC faced the consequences.

In a sense, the second UEC did as well. The third UEC never got of the ground. It seemed that the fourth was bringing some very much needed work and security to the planet.

At first he never imagined how the Colonials would fit in. Then it him.

" Could these Cylons were seeing be a consequence of something?" Max then asked. "Colonial history doesn't mention it being an event like that. I wonder what really happened?"

Lisa had begun working on her speech as the diplomat and the admiral discussed history.

"Unlike many of you, I was on our world the day the ship we now know as the SDF 1 arrived. I was there the day the Zentraedi came and destroyed our world. That day they nearly made us refugees from our own homes. But we survived, and we rebuild.

She paused for a minute to think, then wrote "We build our homes to shelter us. We rebuild the homes of Tirol and aided those in need to find shelter as well. Tirol we sought, the Invid we found. We rebuild our homes again after defeating the Invid and opened up to the stars. Now the stars bring something home to us, long lost brothers who hope to find shelter with us again."

Lisa then wrote some of the things a camera crew was have to going to display. A few hours later, she felt contend. Her speech would be a Gloval on a scale never seen before. Lisa had any and all reason to laugh heartily as she approached her husband and ambassador Sterling.

"Remember the speech Gloval held the day you and Miriya married, Max?" The two men gawked at Lisa awkwardly. "Boy do I ever, so does Miriya by the way." Then he noticed Lisa her face "Oh boy, she's got a plan again, Rick."

And so it happened, that the same evening Earth local time, a special newscast with Sandra Mc Dowell found its way to all the monitors in public spaces, and to peoples sets in their homes.

They first heard the words of admiral Lisa Hayes-Hunter " "Unlike many of you, I was on our world the day the ship we now know as the SDF 1 arrived. I was there the day the Zentraedi came and destroyed our world. That day they nearly made us refugees from our own homes. But we survived, and we rebuild. "

As the camera continued its pan to show the colonial fleet, Lisa continued with her speech "

We rebuild our homes to shelter us. We rebuild the homes of Tirol and aided those in need to find shelter as well. Tirol we sought, the Invid we found. We rebuild our homes again after defeating the Invid and opened up to the stars. Now the stars bring something home to us, long lost brothers who hope to find shelter with us again."

The camera now showed some of the ships and the living conditions aboard as Lisa described some of the events and adventures the fleet chanced upon.

Then the camera footage changed, as did the voiceover. This part was read by Apollo.

"We were trapped. We thought we could defeat the Cylons and for a millennia we did prevent them from overrunning all of us. We thought we were undefeatable, and when the Cylons sued for peace, we were all too happy. We were wrong."

The footage played was everything the Galactica had picked up after they had cleared the jamming zone the Cylons had put up at Cimtar.

On Earth and its outposts throughout the galaxy, people watched, awestruck.

Things proceeded rapidly after that.

Within a few days several small assorted taskforces began jumping into the system. Lisa handled all the deployments of the new vessels, to match the position onf all of the vessels of the colonial fleet. In the middle of that work however, both she and Rick were asked to come to the Galactica.

They were told to wait outside the council chambers. Company came not much later. "Starbuck, Roy, Scott. What the hell are you guys doing here?"

"Well, captain Starbuck here told us about what was going on. If they called you over, I'll bet they're about to reach a decision." To everybodies surprise, Sheba showed up as well. She immediately came over to Starbuck "Apollo's in there, so are Tigh and Cain." Her face portrayed a slight hint of anxiousness.

"Why so anxious, if Apollo's and your father are half the men some of these council members are, this shouldn't take this long." Roy commented. "That is true. But unfortunately, some of these men were also empowered by commander Adama and thought they could do business as usual. They never realized things had changed after the destruction."

This caused a few uneasy glances within the RDF circle. "Did it ever change?" a curious Scott now asked. Sheba looked down. "No it didn't." And she went on to tell the occurances where either her father, or commander Adama had to face down the council.

It was enough to make both the admirals shudder. Rick briefly remembered the story of how senator Russo had been to the SDF 1 bridge, ordering Gloval to launch. And the rest was history as one would say. He wondered how Russo would have reacted when Breetai came up with the truce.

His thoughts were interrupted as the doors were opened. Out came Reese, the head of council security. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Earth forces, the council will see you now."

Lisa, Rick and Max were escorted to their places by the guards while Roy, Scott and Starbuck were told to leave. It was still a closed door session.

"Welcome, my name is Sire Geller. I am currently the council president. We have a number of questions to ask you." The two admirals looked to their ambassador, who nodded.

" Sire Geller, I am ambassador Maximilian Sterling. I've been asked to speak on the behalf of these officers and the planet they represent."

This caused one of the other councilors, a woman by the name of Ashira to rise "And what planet might that be, ambassador?"

Max looked at her, not believing what he had just heard "Earth." His reply caused some excited mumbling within the council ranks. Geller silenced it almost immediately "Earth, it exists doesn't it?" He directed his question to Rick. "It does. All three of us present here before you, were born and raised there."

Some of the councilors wrote down something on their pads. Ashira rose again. "Earth society, can you define it?" Lisa already knew, the question was directed at her.

" rebuilding, and needing to find its place." She then told the story of the SDF 1 and how Earth became a battleground in three galactic wars. She added the story of the Sentinels and the campaign in Tirol not much later.

At the end of her story, Geller was sceptic. "It would seem if we where to go there, we could find ourselves involved in another interstellar war."

"It would seem that way." Another counciller remarked. Ashira was quiet and contemplating for a moment. Then another councilor, Cravus, an Adama supporter spoke "Earth was our goal. Now that we're nearly there, shouldn't we be discussing how to rebuild and how to provide homes and jobs for our people?" The question was never answered.

Instead, the debate continued, until Ashira spoke out. "When this journey began, our goal was Earth. Now that we're so close to completing this goal, the time for a decision is near. This decision however isn't ours to make. It should be our peoples!"

All three RDF officers found themselves agreeing with the councilor. However, Geller did not. "This debate is by no means over yet, Ashira. There are still many things to decide."

Rick now noticed a medallion Lisa wore. She had told him sometime ago that it had been with her family for ages. Rick had always liked it, telling his wife it made her look so much more the admiral then he would ever be.

It almost seemed as if the medal was glowing. Before Rick Hunter could tell his wife, she stood up. "Enough of this bickering!"

The entire room fell silent. "My dear admiral you are out of order."

"Perhaps, but your indecision will cost lives, and I'm not willing to risk lives again." The room grew eerily quiet. Was the admiral challenging the council? Rick noticed that Geller would be happy to rise to the challenge and nodded to Max.

" Councillors, admiral, I'm sure if we all let this cool down we'll be able to work out an arrangement."

Lisa ignored him, as did Geller.

"It seems you lack compassion, admiral." Now Rick began to get up, wanting to beat the councilor senseless.

But Lisa was prepared "It seems you have a lack of understanding of our capabilities." This remark caused a few anxious faces amongst the council members. Esspecially so when Lisa took something out of her coat.

To the councilors it appeared to be a remote of somesorts. "She's got a bomb, get her."someone cried as Lisa pushed down the single button turning the entire room into white.

It didn't last long.

When everything turned normal, newly promoted commander Tigh and colonel Apollo came rushing in with a bunch of warriors hot on their tail.

"What just happened?" Tigh asked. Rick told him. and pointed him to the star view window, where they could see the fleet, still in formation and alongside the Galactica. A couple of Alphas raced through the fleet, Tigh looked at them and followed them as they passed over a planet, a bright shining planet.

" Earth?" Apollo asked, beginning to understand what happened.

" Earth." Lisa said in a decisive voice. "Earth." Rick repeated, along with Max.

From the big viewer, everyone in the hall looked at the planet and marveled at its beauty. The wagon train had come home.

13 Reconstruction

The riot between the Earth officers and the council had leaked, but only after everyone had moved off the ships. At the first election, the old council was completely voted out of office. In a show of support, included amongst the winners, were Cain and Apollo.

In a move unprecedented in colonial history, Apollo, like his father before him, was elected council president.

Cain, Sheba, Athena, Starbuck. All friends from time spent in space and on planets, in battles. Along with Blue squadron as an honour guard, stood before and alongside the platform where the ceremony would be held.

Admirals Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes Hunter would also attend, along with ambassador Max Sterling. UEC council president Jennifer Mckinley would also be attending.

The admirals had separate quarters in Caprica city, the colonial capital on Earth. Admiral Rick Hunter found himself overlooking the city from his balcony.

Caprica city was a beautiful sight. Even the residential pyramids he saw in the distance where a sight to behold. Yesterday evening, during dinner with Lisa, Rick had looked over the city and he had sworn those buildings had turned purple.

Lisa had smiled and told him what she had seen. Rick had just shook his head. The colonials were an incredible bunch, and thanks to robotechnology, they were rebuilding their homes fast then everyone had thought possible.

Trade and agriculture were also booming again. And colonial industry, Rick shuddered at what he had seen. The colonials had taken some of their industrial base with them in their long trek through space. That same industrial base was now producing again. And unemployment was going down, rapidly. It seemed as if the colonials were hiring anyone they could get their hands on to work for them.

With Earths economy on the rise again, it seemed as if the hopes of her people rose as well. And it showed. Cities started rebuilding, trade began to grow, it seemed to all as if flowers that had bloomed were now more full of their colour then anyone noticed.

Apollo stood in his quarters flinching at his dress uniform. He felt stupid. But still like his father before him, he had been chosen from his people to lead them. It wasn't something you'd turn your back on quite easily.

A movement from across the room startled him. But he was quick to realize it was Sheba, his fiancé. The daughter of Cain wasn't in her dress uniform yet.

Yet she still had an angels smile on her face.

" Sheba?"

Sheba approached and hugged him. "Oh Apollo." At her tone, Apollo suddenly became worried.

"Sheba are you allright?" Sheba hugged him closer. "I'm as fine as can be! We're all fine."

Apollo didn't quite understand it. "what do you mean, we're all fine. We've been fine ever since....." It was then he suddenly understood what his wife meant.

She meant more to him now than ever.

And from a shadowy corner of the great beyond a lonely figure sent his eery laugh through the entire spectrum.

There was an audio chime. Apollo turned to see Manuel Cortez, their migration officer from the UEC enter.

" Excuse me, commander, captain but seems we're running a bit late for the ceremony. Could you please hurry up?"

With a nod, the colonial leader and his wife heeded his words.

They made it in the nick of time. And it went of without trouble.

At the party afterwards, Blue squadron nearly drove both the father and grandfather to be into bankrupcy with their drinking. But still a good time was had by all.

14 chess

_two years later_

Sheba had given birth to a daughter, named Mira, the girl afcourse was a striking resemblance of her mother. Naturally, Apollo was there as she took her first steps and did all those other things young children do.

Cain was there as well. Between the new space academy he commanded and days aboard the Pegasus, he spend as much time as he could with his granddaughter. Afcourse there were he tried to spoil Mira. But sheba kept an eye on it.

By then the Colonial Remembrance Day had come along. Especially for Apollo, this was a day of reflection, to remember those departed on the long journey and times before. There would be a ceremony this day at the temple on Mount Adama, the Kobolian national monument.

Athena, Cain, Jolly and Bojay were already present when Apollo and Sheba arrived. As Athena looked at her chronometer, she noticed that Starbuck and casseiopeia were fashionably late again. She did notice the Hunters and the Sterlings again. Those guys were basically happy and had already known each other a very long time. Much like Cain and her father had.

In a way she was glad they were here. Athena had also noticed they had already brought Mira along. Part of Athena felt sad. Though she had recently started seeing a certain pilot by the name of Nathaniel Dixon, Athena stilt felt lonely. There was hope however. There was a tap on her shoulder. And the brown eyes and delicious smile of Nathaniel Dixon were impressed upon her face.

A surprised Athena asked him how he had managed to get in. Nathan told her "The Sterlings were old friends of the family, so it was easy to get in." Athena smiled and put her hand on his as Apollo walked up to a daise to begin his speech.

"This is a day of great joy and also of great remorse. This is the day we remember those who have gone before us in life." With that Apollo bowed his head in brief prayer along with the other colonials.

According to the protocol, after every colonial, one earth borne would make a statement. Athena was pleasantly surprised when Nathan got up and walked over to the pedestal.

"Perhaps it is the hardest to remember someone you never met." There was a pause. "My name is Nathaniel Dixon. My parents were John and Emma Dixon. At the time of the SDF 1 fold mishap they had a son, Ben. Somewhat after the mishap he enlisted and became a fighter pilot. He was killed in the line of duty. I never met him. But I have heard stories. Thanks to Admirals Hayes and Hunter and ambassador Sterling, I now have a recollection of my adopted family."

And so time passed. At one time or another each time colonials or Earth inhabitants expressed their joy and sorrow having lost a loved one.

At the closing stage a colonial poet and an Earth poet each recited from their own work. After that, priests from all the colonial worlds an all Earth religions blessed the people and send them on their way.

When Apollo and Sheba hadn't joined some people chatting at the foot of mount Adama, Lisa had felt the urge to get back up there. Rick tagged along, as did Max, Miriya, Athena and Nathaniel.

They made their way up without much effort.

As they got to the top, they found Sheba clutching Mira, while Apollo was facing off with Cortez, the UEC representative.

Cortez briefly smiled when he saw them.

And out of nowhere, a ring of fire encircled the entire group.

15 the dance pt 1

A brief glance showed everyone that they were surrounded by a wall of flame. Both Nathan and Athena had seen how Apollo and Cortez were still facing off.

"What the hell's going on here?" Rick bellowed.

The two braggards ignored him. "You'll never have her." At that Cortez had to laugh. It was a laugh that reflected eerily of the ring of flame and surrounding mountain side.

"Oh Apollo. If you could only look at the futility of your quest." Cortez held his head at an odd angle. "And perhaps you shall." Out of nowhere a circle appeared in the sky between all of them. An image appeared in that circle.

Apollo was seated on a throne. Sheba was on the throne beside him. Behind them, were servants, shrouded. To their sides were soldiers, holding lances. In front of them were a man and a woman. Apollo pointed to a side and the man was lead away by other soldiers.

The vision disappeared again.

Apollo never looked at the vision. Sheba ignored it. Only Athena had seen it for what it was. And now Cortez focused his attention on her. Again a circle appeared with a vision. This time it showed new Macross city. It was soon followed by Moscow, Washington DC and many other cities, some of them, off earth ones. On all of them something dominated the skyline, a statue of Athena herself, as large as a 150 story building.

"Or how about you, Admiral Hunter, Power beyond your wildest dreams. The power or life or death, maybe in such way that you could even save your friends."A vision of Ben Dixon and Roy Fokker appeared.

Rick turned away. "Roy and Ben are gone. Nothing I can do will bring them back." Cortez looked at Lisa Hayes. "Your husband doesn't seem to care about his friends."

Lisa remained silent.

"So what about you, Admiral Hayes. How would you feel about a chance to rescue your father?" Again an image appeared. This time it was Admiral Donald Hayes. He stood before a monitor, looking at his daughter. Then there was the explosion that took her father from her.

"As for you, ambassador Sterling. It seems you consider yourself a warrior. And you gave the most worthy opponent you ever defeated a chance to live." Max stayed silent and moved to help Sheba up. Nathaniel and Athena brushed her off as Rick and Lisa halted beside Apollo.

Suddenly a jet shrieked through the flames. The two admirals, the lieutenant and the colonials each recognized the fighter as being an Alpha.

The Alpha made short circle, then went into guardian mode and touched down near the group.

Cortez continued to look at the assembled group. "Captain Starbuck, how nice of you to make it to our reaquaintence."

Starbuck put his helmet over the HUD.

Starbuck ignored him. "Everyone okay?" when it turned out that everyone was okay, he explained. "Ladies and gentlemen, I take it you all have just met Diabolis."

" Diabolis?" this was Nathan.

"Oh yeah. There's a big lot of references to him in your culture as well. You'll love the similarities, Lucifer, Satan, the devil." Apollo looked at Starbuck incrediously.

"Oh yeah, Cortez over here is none other then count Iblis." Now Apollo's anger grew.

"Iblis!" Apollo looked ready to rush him.

"Join me, Apollo, Sheba, all of you." He was met by utter silence from all of them, except Nathan, who laughed.

It was a hearty laugh. He then turned to the admirals and the ambassador. "Guys, do you remember Christ on the mountain?" Rick and Lisa looked at each other knowingly. As did Max and Miriya. They now began to laugh as well.

And they didn't stop.

"Enough!" From Iblis extended hand flame shot towards all of them.

Rick jumped in front of Lisa and closed his eyes. Max and Miriya just held hands and flinched. Apollo tried to shield Sheba, while Nathaniel Dixon tried to pull Athena out of the way.

The flames never reached them.

They just shot up into the sky and dissipated harmlessly.

As everyone dared to glance at Cortez/Iblis again, there was a bright white light present. It stood in a direct line between themselves and the evil one.

At first it seemed at ease. But then there was movement. The light briefly rose and began to hover at a certain height.

Out of nowhere a voice began to speak "These are my children. As long as they believe in the goodness of humanity, they will not stray from their destiny. You should know that by now...... Iblis." Nathan suddenly felt a feminine hand clenching his right hand.

Rick and Lisa were now standing besides each other. They were joined by Max and Miriya and Nathan and Athena. Finally, Apollo helped up his wife and daughter and brought them to the group.

He then turned to the light. "Thank you father."

A brief glimpse of commander Adama turned towards the assembled people. "Know this Apollo, the road ahead is long and perilous. Trust what you've learned and trust the lords they'll keep you safe. Iblis will not harm you, Sheba or Mira ever again."

Again there was the sound of thrusters that filled the air.

Rick and Lisa looked suddenly aghast and flinched as a single well aimed salvo from a Zentraedi officers battle pod hit the temple and sent debris flying everywhere. A second salvo destroyed Starbucks Alpha. By the time the debris cleared that same pod had landed.

Now Iblis smiled. "So be it then. If you will not join me of your own free will. My apprentice will destroy you." He then shimmered out of view.

The laughter that filled the air made everyone flinch. "And a pleasure it shall be to destroy those inferior puny Micronians." There was a repeat of mad laughter.

"Khyron." Miriya hissed.

" Khyron." Lisa whispered, remembering a certain day over thirty years ago.

" Khyron." Max and Rick said to each other, knowing, understanding.

With a whisper Adama's light also faded away.

The two RDF admirals, the ambassador and his wife and the colonials, all of them just watched as Khyron the destroyer got out of his pod and came over towards them. The ground trembled in anticipation of his next step.

As he noticed his opponents, he kneeled down to give one his particular attention.

"You never were a worthy opponent Miriya." He paused a moment to study Max. "Nor where you." The two of them watched as Khyron's boot descended upon them.

"Care to pick on someone your own size?" A female voice asked.

This time the sky was filled with the thunder of metal boots. A battloid approached the scene. Max and Miriya recognized the voice immediately. "Dana!" They shouted in unison.

Dana ignored it and concentrated on the task at hand. Khyron had apparently thought it fit to bring a sidearm along. Figuring Dana to be distracted, he decided to pull.

A single shot from the battloid rifle sent the blaster spinning. Khyron however still looked uninjured. That became clear as he charged.

He was too fast to shoot.

Khyron tackled the battloid in a flying jump. Robot and Alien alike thumbled down the hill.

Dana considered herself lucky to have strapped in well and wearing a helmet. A brief systems check showed the battloid to be in pretty good shape. In the distance Khyron got up.

"You're nothing." He sneered. The battloid didn't move. Instead there was a reply. "You're a has been."

Khyron felt the rage boiling up inside of him. From his battle armour he pulled a pair of Zentraedi daggers. The battloid didn't carry such a weapon.

But Dana put the battloid in a fighting stance never the less.

Out of nowhere came two shots of cannon fire.

Each of those two shots knocked the daggers squarely from his hands. Two more Alphas touched down.

"So you're Khyron. You don't look so though." Scott taunted through the externals. Khyron stood still, to observe them.

"Hah!" He produced two more daggers and threw them. This forced each of the battloids into evasive action.

Scott was ready to take a shot when he saw Khyron pass in front of his commanders. He withheld firing. He told his wing man to do the same.

Khyron ran for his pod and took off. The two Alphas morphed back to fighter mode and went after him.

16 The dance pt2

The two Alphas sped off after the battle pod.

In the meantime out in space, near Hunter station, a supervisor was called to one of the sensor stations where an operator had difficulty understanding what was happening in space.

She pointed out the peculiarities and added in that nothing was wrong with the equipment nor with her training. The supervisor was an experienced hand however who recognized what he was dealing with.

He called his commanding officer. "Sir, if you would, please take a look at sector four one two." The lieutenant put the requested sector up on screen. Slight disturbances were already visible within the fabric of space itself.

The lieutenant remembered his history classes. The ensign that manned the station knew some stuff but not the particulars. So it was the lieutenant who ordered Hunter station to Red alert, thereby giving Earth some much needed warning.

In the meantime, Scott and his wingman were hot on Khyron's tail. Each time they though they had him, the Zentraedi warlord evaded his opponents fire.

In the middle of space, Khyron changed course to a heading to would bring him to sector four one two.

The lieutenant in the Hunter station command center held his breath. If it was a massive fold indeed, there would be trouble, huge trouble.

Khyron ignored Hunter station and vice versa. They had focused too much on the new event taking place not too far away. It was at the same time Khyron neared the edge of the sector.

The time was then.

And with a dazzling flash of light, the fleet arrived. And it was all Khyron needed. He managed to wraggle a few more bits of speed from his ship. He reached his command ship safely.

Scott banked his fighter when he saw the fleet. He wasn't really thinking about getting Khyron anymore. There was too much at stake now.

The two alphas returned to the nearby Hunter station.

Back on Earth, rescue and security vehicles had pulled up to the site of the battle. A brief medical examination had shown that all were okay.

It was then the shuttles came in.

17: matchup

During the flight to their respective ships, everyone got briefed. Lisa ordered the SDF 4 ready to launch as Max did the same with SDF 5. Cain and Apollo and his family were on the way to their respective ships.

Aboard Hunter station, everyone was working feverishly to identify the huge fleet now in the sector. Some of the shapes were known. Others were not. That was until another officer had the foresight to run pictures of the ships they were seeing back through the Galactica and Pegasus database.

Sirens went off on Earth soon thereafter.

The calls came into the SDF4 command center not much later. Soon thereafter, more EDF force ships joined the two battlecruisers and the two battlestars which were now on their way to Hunter station as well. The comlines to the two battle cruisers and the two battlestars were humming almost immediately.

Lisa got to the bridge first. Rick arrived not much later. The first report the two admirals heard was the commanders of the two battlestars wanting to talk to both of them.

"Well, admiral Hunter, it seems we have gatecrashers in our yard. What shall we do with them." This was Cain's typical brash reaction. " I know one thing. We can't let them get to Earth. "Rick looked at Lisa and nodded.

"Here's what we'll do. Sdf 4 and Galactica will stay in position and defend Earth. Pegasus and SDF 5 will try to flank the enemy forces. Should either of you not make it, return to Earth and help us out."

The two faces on the SDF4 command screen nodded.

In the meantime, Khyron had docked with his flagship and had gone straight to the bridge. Here he found a subordinate looking over a tactical display. The micronian forces were already moving to their defensive positions. A thin smile shaped his lips. "Move us in closer, ready all ships for launch."

The warlords fleet began to close. The human fleet stayed in formation.

" Scanners report two enemy ships closing." A voice echoed through the command bubble. Khyron laughed. "Destroy them, then move on and take the planet." The subordinate complied. Khyrons fleet consisted of a small number of Zentraedi ships along with six baseships. Half of the Zentraedi ships and all of the baseships were now moving in on the SDF5 and the Pegasus.

On the bridge of the Pegasus commander Cain received the report that the Cylons had launched their raiders. At the same time Max heard the Zentraedi had launched as well. He nodded. "Launch all fighters."

Not much later, Cain did the same.

18: locking horns.

The first Alphas cut the Zentraedi to shreds. It took them a mere ten minutes to finish off all the pods launched. At the order from SDF 5 flight control, they joined the colonial vipers in their fight against the Cylon raiders.

Aboard the Galactica and the SDF 4, the six baseships had been noticed on the scanner. After a short analysis, Lisa determined the best option would be to have the Pegasus and the SDF 5 regroup with them. She ordered the recall.

Cain nodded, a message soon went over to the SDF-5, requesting them to provide cover as the Pegasus recovered her vipers. The fight was brief but intense, but in the end, all of the vipers managed to land safely, allowing the two ships to return to Earth.

Here they fell into formation with the other two vessels.

" Let's see what Khyron 'll do now" Lisa commented on the situation.


End file.
